Will anyone love it? Dispatches from UKREiiF

“Before you even get to a building you can feel rejected by a building.”

This is how Sharon Watson MBE DL, Chief Executive and Principal of the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, neatly captured one of the central themes of a recent discussion. She was speaking at a Humanise-hosted panel debate at the UK Real Estate Infrastructure & Investment Forum (UKREiiF), a huge annual event which brings together thousands of people working in property development, planning and design.

Most people experience architecture not from inside buildings but alongside them – walking to work, waiting for a bus, taking children to school, moving through streets every day without consciously noticing the buildings framing them.

Humanise calls these the “walls of public life”: the façades and frontages that shape how cities feel at eye level and at walking pace.

Great strides have been made in improving the public realm – streets, parks, squares – but the discussion repeatedly returned to the idea that buildings themselves matter just as much. Not only how they function, but how they meet the street, how they communicate with people and how they contribute to a sense of belonging.

Above: Professor Rosie McEachan and architect Laurence Dudeney

Sharon returned to this, describing buildings as a conversation: “talking to me” and “reflecting me.” She also spoke about buildings as a kind of language, particularly in communities where English may not be someone’s first language.

Professor Rosie McEachen brought the science into the room. Speaking from the experience of the internationally recognised Born in Bradford study, she argued that the places we live in shape health and inequality “undoubtedly.” The focus wasn’t simply wellbeing, but equity too.

That wider connection between identity, confidence and cities surfaced throughout the conversation.

Richard Parker, Mayor of the West Midlands, underlined the strategic role mayors can play at a time when cost of living pressures, the NHS and high streets are all placing renewed focus on the quality of our towns and cities.

He highlighted the value behind the Powerhouse – Birmingham FC’s future home – where heritage and history were deliberately built into the brief. The ambition wasn’t simply to build at scale, but to create development that connects with communities and feels rooted in its location.

Kate Josephs CB, Chief Executive of Sheffield City Council, described Sheffield as a city shaped by industry, landscape, rivers, moors, culture and civic pride. Her point was that development should give physical expression to that story rather than smoothing it away.

Sheffield’s industrial inheritance, the legacy of John Ruskin’s Guild of St George, and the way the city’s rivers, moors and landscape still shape its identity – these are all crucial clues that matter when thinking about what comes next.

She pointed to examples including the cementation furnace at Furnace Hill (the only one of its kind in the country) and Moor Foot, a building many still see as divisive, but one with huge, embodied carbon and the potential to be valued differently by a future generation.

The wider point was that new development should feel connected to the character and story of the place around it.

Tim Heatley, Co-Founder of social impact developer Capital&Centric, spoke about changing the narrative and perception of places in order to create demand. Buildings, he said, are constants in people’s lives. One of the defining questions his work centres around is: “How do we create the heritage buildings of the future?” and, crucially, added that doing it doesn’t need to be prohibitively expensive.

This kind of long-term thinking was a unifying thread throughout the discussion, alongside questions of trust, stewardship and identity.

Asked how you create identity in a New Town with no history to lean on, Tim admitted he didn’t yet know. “Watch this space,” he said.

Above: Tim Heatley and Abigail Scott Paul

That openness appeared elsewhere too.

Kate spoke candidly about a consultation process in Gleadless Valley where residents didn’t initially feel fully part of the conversation. The council chose to begin again and rebuild a shared vision alongside local residents and tenant groups.

Trust, listening and participation were a strong theme from the session. Bring communities in early. Listen properly. Understand what drains joy from people’s daily lives. Be patient where places are still finding their identity. Listen to young people and create places where children can play.

There was also a sense that this requires confidence from civic leaders and developers alike. Richard Parker’s approach – “fearless, not reckless” – found like minds across the panel.

Above: Mayor Richard Parker

At the close of the session, chair Abigail Scott Paul, Global Head of the Humanise Campaign, offered a neat shorthand for the wider argument about the value of building for joy:

“Joy = GDP.”

Humanise is now developing a guide for mayors on how to make cities more interesting, visually engaging and emotionally intelligent places. The guide will focus on how mayors can use vision, design expertise and partnerships to encourage development that strengthens local identity and improves everyday experience at street level.

The conversation at UKREiiF suggested there is growing appetite for exactly that kind of leadership.